Video: One Dead in Blast at Jerusalem Bus Station

A four-pound bomb exploded across from Jerusalem's Central Bus Station Wednesday, killing one person and wounding 50 others, two seriously.

By Gil Ronen and Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 3/23/2011, 3:16 PM / Last Update: 3/23/2011, 3:14 PM

A four-pound bomb exploded across from Jerusalem's Central Bus Station Wednesday afternoon and killed one person and wounded 50 others, two seriously.Eighteen victims are being treated for moderate injuries.

The explosive charge was placed at a public telephone booth and was detonated as two packed buses passed by. The buses sustained moderate damage in the explosion.

The terrorist who planted the bomb apparently escaped the scene. Security officials said there were no specific indications of an impending terrorist attack in Israel's capital.

Jerusalem's Mayor, Nir Barkat, was on the scene minutes after the blast, encouraging citizens not to allow the attack to change their daily routines - though he called upon them to be vigilant. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in his Jerusalem residence, preparing to fly to Moscow, when the bombing occurred.

ZAKA rescue service personnel were able to arrive at the scene immediately because they were at a meeting nearby, discussing sending aid to disaster-stricken Japan, when they felt the reverberations of the blast. The attack occurred in virtually the same place struck by another Palestinian terrorist in 1994.

"We didn't wait even for a second; we just got up and ran to the bus station," Zaka volunteer Moti Bukchi told Channel 2 television. "I saw two women lying on the ground, unconscious and covered in blood."

Wednesday's attack was the first major terrorist incident in Jerusalem since the tractor attacks and the massacre of eight people at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in March 2008.